Businessman politician statesman
Nathaniel Gorham was born in Charlestown, Massachusets, and was baptized in the First Church there on May 21, 1738. The eldest of the five children of Nathaniel and Mary (Soley) Gorham, he was descended from John Gorham, born in England, who emigrated to Massachusetts and in 1643, married Desire Howland, daughter of John Howland of the Mayflower.
When he was about fifteen, Nathaniel was apprenticed to Nathaniel Coffin, a merchant of New London, whom he served until 1759.
When Nathaniel returned to Charlestown and engaged in business on his own account. He appears to have prospered early and became one of the leading men of Massachusetts both as a businessman and as a statesman.
He was one of the incorporators of the Charles River Bridge (1785). From the beginning of the Revolutionary period, he took an active part in public affairs, serving as a member of the colonial legislature from 1771 to 1775; as a delegate to the Provincial Congress, 1774-75; and as a member of the Board of War from 1778 until its dissolution in 1781.
He was also a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1779-80, a member of the state Senate in 1780, a member of the state House from 1781 to 1787, being a speaker in 1781, 1782, and 1785.
On July 1, 1785, he was appointed a judge of the Middlesex court of common pleas. He was a member of the Council, 1788-89.
In addition to his activity in state politics, he sat in the Continental Congress in 1782, 1783, and 1785 - 87, being elected president of the Congress June 6, 1786, and was a delegate to the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, in which he served for some weeks as presiding officer in the Committee of the Whole after his election to that position on May 30.
The following year, he was a member of the Massachusetts state convention at which the Federal Constitution was adopted. At the end of the Revolution, in settlement of a boundary dispute, New York had ceded to Massachusetts a vast tract of land known as the Genesee Country.
In order to realize on these holdings, Massachusetts in April 1788 sold the lands, 6, 000, 000 acres, to Oliver Phelps of Windsor, Conn. , and Nathaniel Gorham, who had formed a partnership rather than bid against each other.
It is probable that the partnership was, in reality, a syndicate including others, among them Robert Morris of Philadelphia, but the purchase was in the names of Phelps and Gorham. The purchase price was $1, 000, 000 to be paid in three annual installments in the scrip of Massachusetts, known as the “consolidated securities, ” which had fallen much below par.
In July 1788, not without complications, the purchasers succeeded in extinguishing the Indian title to the eastern part of the enormous domain, some 2, 600, 000 acres, and in the next two years large amounts of land were sold to settlers, sometimes whole townships at a single sale.
Various business difficulties were encountered, however, among them an uncontemplated rise in the price of the scrip which made the cost much greater than the purchasers had expected.
By 1790 a large part of the property had been sold, but Phelps and Gorham were unable to meet their payments and, as far as Massachusetts was concerned, compromised matters by surrendering all the western lands title to which was still encumbered by Indian claims. Gorham’s resources were insufficient to tide him over the crisis and he became insolvent.
He succumbed to the strain and died of apoplexy.
Gorham took part frequently in the debates and was in favor of a seven-year term for the president, of long terms for senators, of extensive powers for Congress, and of the appointment of judges by the executive.
He believed in a strongly centralized government but that, even so, the country was too vast to remain undivided for more than a century and a half.
Gorham was a member of the “Ancient” Fire Society, one of the benevolent organizations which included the “best people”.
Gorham had never visited the vast domain which he had attempted to settle but his son Nathaniel became an early pioneer there.
Another, Benjamin, entered public life and represented Massachusetts in Congress for several terms. A daughter, Lydia, married John Phillips and was the grandmother of Phillips Brooks.
Quotes from others about the person
A contemporary sketch of Gorham, written at the time by William Pierce, says: “Mr. Gorham is a merchant in Boston, high in reputation, and much in the esteem of his countrymen.
He is a Man of very good sense, but not much improved in his education. He is eloquent and easy in public debate, but has nothing fashionable or elegant in his style; all he aims at is to convince, and where he fails it never is from his auditory not understanding him, for no Man is more perspicuous and full is rather lusty, and has an agreeable and pleasing manner”.
In 1763, Nathaniel married Rebecca Call, by whom he had nine children.
3 May 1709 - 22 April 1809
14 May 1744 - 18 November 1812
13 February 1775 - 27 September 1855
